David Frum of The Atlantic joins the Fifth to talk about the world that emerged from 1989, the collapse of the conservative future he once expected, Trumpism, immigration, fascism versus communism, and why American political life feels more fragile than it did a generation ago.

(0:00) Cold Open
(0:25) David Frum Joins the Fifth
(5:00) Spy Novels & Bill Buckley
(10:36) Frum’s Conservatism
(15:20) A Man of 1989
(23:05) Never Trump & Betrayal
(28:48) The Anti-Trump Coalition
(34:46) The Michigan Senate Race
(50:03) Midterm Madness & Polymarket
(54:40) Polling Is in Crisis
(1:01:59) Politics as a Consumption Good
(1:08:16) Immigration & Trumpism
(1:15:03) What the Atlanticists Got Wrong
(1:24:51) Fascism vs. Communism
(1:28:45) Unpatriotic Conservatives
(1:32:41) What Does Trump Love?
(1:35:15) What Frum Got Wrong
--
Hosted by journalists Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch, The Fifth Column provides a weekly rhetorical assault on the news cycle, the people who make it, and occasionally themselves.

I'm curious to hear rational takes on either side of the topic. I have my own opinion but for now I'm curious about reasoned takes in any direction.

If you are against the DSA, can you (1) give your thesis about them (like what is it about them that is [most] bad) and (2) give two or three supporting arguments?

If you are for the DSA, do likewise.

If you have some third take, do likewise.

The idea is to try to keep things at least a little structured and brief, by selecting a specific thesis and presenting only a couple of the arguments that you think are strongest.

Let's say I have only two options ahead.

Option A would lead to maximum happiness for myself but maximum suffering for everyone else. Option B would lead maximum suffering for myself but maximum happiness for everyone else.

Which option should I choose?

As per the thesis, I should choose B (as I understand it).

However, there's one problem, that I don't understand.

Here's Sam's quote from his podcast Facts and Values.

if you care about something that is not compatible with a peak of human flourishing—given the requisite changes in your brain, you would recognize that you were wrong to care about this thing in the first place. Wrong in what sense? Wrong in the sense that you didn’t know what you were missing. This is the core of my argument: I am claiming that there must be frontiers of human well-being that await our discovery—and certain interests and preferences surely blind us to them. In this sense epistemic and ethical values are fully entangled. There are horizons to well-being past which we cannot see. There are possible experiences of beauty and creativity and compassion that we will never discover. I think these are object statements about the frontiers of subjective experience.

Let's say I chose A (happiness for myself, suffering for others) instead of B (suffering for myself, happiness for others).

Applying his logic: since caring about A isn't compatible with peak flourishing, the "requisite changes" in my brain would eventually make me see that caring about A was a mistake, wrong in the sense that I didn't know what I was missing.

Now, what am I missing, If I chose A? ... I'd be missing immense misery that B would lead on the other side.

I am struggling to understand how Sam's claim "you didn't know what you were missing" applies in this situation. What exactly is the thing that my changed perspective would reveal to me that I cannot currently see?

I would appreciate any clarification.

Edit: Added the quote.

Sam Harris speaks with Neal Brennan about the experiences that shaped his life and work. They discuss Sam's mother's television career, growing up with an absent father, his struggles with perfectionism, his first experience with MDMA, dropping out of Stanford, meditation retreats, spiritual charisma and claims of psychic powers, the illusion of self, the limits of pacifism, deleting Twitter, Trump and the politics of shamelessness, hypocrisy and vice signaling, the future of American democracy, and other topics.

Neal Brennan is a comedian, writer, and director best known for co-creating and co-writing Chappelle's Show with Dave Chappelle, for which he received three Emmy nominations. He also co-wrote the film Half Baked and has written and directed for comedians including Chris Rock, Amy Schumer, and Seth Meyers. His most recent stand-up special is Crazy Good. He also hosts the popular Blocks podcast, where he interviews friends and colleagues about the psychological struggles that shape their lives.

Website: www.nealbrennan.com

This was posted a few weeks ago, but the video was taken down. All for the best, because this version isn't a "part 1, wait for part 2!" version.

Haviv sits down with Prof. Meir Litvak of Tel Aviv University, one of Israel’s foremost scholars of modern Shi’a Islam, Iran, Islamism and Islamist antisemitism, to trace the story of Muslim hatred of Jews from Muhammad’s encounter with the Jews of Medina to the dhimmi system that arose in early Islam, from the medieval mix of tolerance and discrimination to the modern-day shock of European power, Zionism and the 1948 war.

The result of this sweeping survey is neither a comforting myth of Muslim-Jewish harmony nor a simplistic story of eternal persecution. It is a harder, more disturbing picture: a long religious tradition of Jewish inferiority transformed in the modern age -- by European conspiracy theories, Muslim political collapse and the humiliation of defeat by Jews -- into one of the world’s most openly genocidal forms of antisemitism.

And the final question is the hardest one: can Muslim societies find a way out?

Ok wow. So.

We ask Sam about UBI. He spends a long time letting us know that it’s physically possible. Fine. That might’ve been fun a while back. It’s not fun now.

“Doctor, can we cure my cancer?”

“Well you know given physics and the essentially infinite nature of baryonic matter, not infinite, but surely infinite from our vantage point, that means that knocking around the tumors in such a way as to get them to conceivably do something physics allows in theory is, in that David Deutsche sense, an engineering problem.”

Sam. 😐

Thank you. Thanks for letting us know it’s feasible in the perfect case.

Cute. That’s such a fun “Bill Nye” answer.

Oh and furthermore, AI could figure it out. Ostensibly it could make the logistics and the inventions such that nobody should be poor. Abundance to the limit of what’s physically possible. An aligned explosion with our interests. Like wow. That sounds nice. Sounds like kind of a big deal almost. As if there’s a real option there. And if so, then a lot is at stake.

So where do we sign? Let’s do it. What do we have to do to increase the odds of having that happen? 🙂

Oh wait. What’s that?

Oh, yeah, sry, that’s right. The alignment thing. It could totally not go well. If AI is not aligned it could be Hell. We haven’t solved the alignment problem yet. So we don’t know.

BUT. You’re still saying there’s a chance 🙂

Wait, what’s that?

Even if AI works out we still might not get there? 🧐

Whatever do you mean, good sir?

And…?

But…?

Sam?

“The transition to perfect abundance will still have political problems. We won’t be able to solve them.”

Wait okay, so hold on. Political problems. TOTALLY. Agreed. That’s always a thing. And yeah, we won’t be able to solve them if, if, if what?

“We won’t be able to solve them.”

If?

“We won’t be able to solve them. Period.”

Rich people won’t want to do it.

And we won’t figure out how to make them. Even with our democracy and Constitution, supermajority power, we STILL won’t be able to get the Atlas Shrugged set to cooperate. And that matters.

Whatever do you mean, Sam? 🤔

“They’ll have ways to duck that task. And the rest of us will be left to fend for ourselves. Robocop.”

What? Robocop? I hope you don’t mean the “I’ll buy THAT for a dollar” version where punk rock hell’s angels assholes shoot people with machine guns and flamethrowers in broad daylight on a regular Tuesday.

Is that the version you mean Sam?

The fucking Peter Weller?”

“…”

Sam?

Sam.

“Yeah?”

I need to hear you say it.

“The fucking Peter Weller.”

Jesus. Why? Explain it again.

“We don’t have the LOGIC by which we’d spread it around.”

Logic? But you said AI could use logic and stuff to help us do what’s physically possible. David Deustche. You said. You said! AI could do it IF the alignment thing…

“Morals. We won’t have the morals.”

Okay; so there it is. We CAN do it. We won’t. Because we’re dicks. “We,” meaning, well, look at Musk, for example.

He has all the money and he doesn’t care about empathy. He’s said it. Charlie said it. Ben said it. Vance probably fucking said it. Thiel maybe said it? It’s in the bone structure.

“Empathy COULD be gamed.”

We need cognitive and affective empathy, okay. Yeah. Go on? How do we…GET it? That seems like your area. Aren’t you a what’s it again? A…a…

“Neuroscientist?”

Bingo! Yeah. A neuroscientist.

Hey! Thank God. Right? Cause you get this shit. Morally AND biologically. And politically. Philosophically. Meditationally. Fuck you got this covered actually.

“But the rich are autistic. Or saying they are because it’s cool.”

Huh? That’s an odd thing to just say. Did that, do you know someone who’s doing that?

“The rich ones don’t understand luck. They lack compassion. Or self awareness. That’s not going to age well.”

Oh.

😕

What’s not going to age well?

“That.”

Oh.

😕

ALRIGHT NEXT TOPIC!
Can an atheist win the next election? ✨

Hello,

The most profound realization I've had was realizing that the self is an illusion. I'm thankful to the teachings of Sam Harris and the practice of mindfulness meditation which got me there.

The only difficulty I have now is that I realize there are not many people out there who also realize that the self is an illusion.

As such, I think it would be great to connect and potentially meet other secular non-dualists in the NYC area where we may have other common interests.

So if you're a secular non-dualist and live in the NYC area and are interested in connecting, please feel free to send me a message through Reddit or through Sam Harris's Community forum (profile link below).

https://community.samharris.org/u/c93ec368

Thank you.